Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Rita
Wilde has been signed up for another multi-year contract on The Sound
(KSWD, 100.3 FM), which -- along with the recent similar news for Joe
Benson -- hopefully means the station will survive the merger (see below
for more on that).

Wilde
stared her radio career at KEZY/Anaheim (now KGBN, 1190 AM) during
their “1190 Rock days” in 1978 under programmer Dave Forman, working
through her tenure alongside such legends as Shana, Steve Downs, Rick
Shaw, Dr. Timothy Leary, Strawberry Jan, Mark Denis and others ... “so
many great people,” she told me. “I had been interning in the building
for a couple of years,” she explained, answering phones for the FM which
at the time was automated. “Dave asked me to make him a tape and he put
me on the air the following weekend.” It was promoted as “Kick A** Rock
and Roll ... “a rockin’ AM station playing FM rock on the AM dial.”

I remember it fondly. The first time I heard The Plimsouls, I heard them on KEZY. But I digress.

In
1982 she moved in to KLOS (95.5 FM) and has been at The Sound since
2013. “The Sound is the kind of radio I love, so I’m thrilled to be
here,” Wilde said. Reflecting on her career, she commented “I am blessed
and grateful.” Hear her nightly Monday through Friday, 7 p.m. to
midnight on The Sound.

Merger Update

Entercom
president and Chief Executive Officer David Field send an email to
employees (interestingly addressed as “Entercom Users”) giving an update
on the planned merger between Entercom and CBS Radio. The letter was
also filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in order to keep
investors updated as well.

“We
have been hard at work, making significant progress towards our
transformational merger,” Field wrote. “We are working with various
government agencies on deal approval and we are engaging with the CBS
corporate team along with a team of expert merger integration advisors
to ensure that we achieve as close to a seamless transition as possible
when we close.”

The merger is expected to be consummated sometime in the second half of next year.

“As
an organization that fundamentally believes there is nothing more
important than the people on our team, our first order of business upon
making the announcement was to hit the road to meet and introduce
ourselves to the CBS Radio staffs. Since early February, we have
traveled across the country to virtually every one of the CBS markets.
It is with great pride that we have shared the Entercom story and
expressed our enthusiasm for the opportunities that lie ahead for the
entire organization,” he said.

While
I am most certainly not a fan of huge radio companies at all -- the
likes of Clear Channel (now iHeart), Cumulus and even CBS itself have
stolen the soul from radio and have put a viable formerly creative
industry on life support. But Entercom does seem to be a different
breed, and as it is a merger rather than a buyout, the company should be
on sound financial footing. Hopefully this may help push some money
into promotions and programming.

Locally
the combined company will -- or may, depending on whether regulations
change under President Trump -- need to divest one station. In response,
Entercom announced that it will place two stations into a trust for
potential sale: KCBS-FM (93.1) and The Sound. Until the merger in
finalized, both companies will operate as completely separate entities.